


Le Monde en Noir et Blanc

by leviathaneren



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: I'm misusing metaphors again, M/M, Wow, ereri, this is sad and i'm sorry, whoopsie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathaneren/pseuds/leviathaneren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t know why they were crying at all.  He wondered, quietly and suddenly, if they were crying for him. If they were crying for the loss of one, or perhaps two friends and fellow comrades.  He wondered if their tears and the product of the unbearable pity that formed in their gut and expanded all the way to the ends of their fingers, burning them alive were because Eren has literally nothing left and they feel for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Le Monde en Noir et Blanc

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I'm so sorry for this.  
> I got the idea for this thing yesterday because of the AU I wrote for the AU of the AU of the thing I'm writing, and now I'm overflowing with unwanted feelings and angst. again, sorry in advance.  
> and I also apologise for the misuse of metapors and butcher of the previously mentioned.  
>  ~~Listen to[this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTLhBz1SI3g) while reading. it makes the experience even better. ~~  
>  greetings aside, I hope you actually do like this so, _Allons-y!_

 

 

The first time he dressed up in an expensive suit and a necktie, his stance was different from what he imagined it would be like.

He doesn’t look cocky, or confident, or ready to take on the world with just his blades and his lover at his side.

He looks defeated, and tired, and vulnerable.

He looks broken.

When walking to the funeral home he received weird stares from the people on the streets.  They looked at him in wonder, stared at his pristine clothes and furrowed their brows in confusion at his expensive suit and shirt and cravat.

Some looked at him like if he was an intruder, because that is all he is, now.

Walking up the steps to the home proved difficult when the other soldiers were staring at him with such despair on their gaze, their pity burning a hole through the side of his head and making him feel dizzy. Still does.

He stood on the outside of the doors during the ceremony, unable and unwilling to go inside and face the harsh truth.

Because his lover was in the casket at the end of the aisle.

The aisle he was supposed to walk down over in a completely different context, meeting at the end to give their vows to accept life together forever, not apart and sad and alone and without the other.  The pain is too much, and it hurt when at the end, he went and stepped on the red carpet that lead him to the end of his life, of his world, to the final time when his universe finally caves in and he is everything that was left, beneath the rubble; alive, breathing, and wanting to be anything but.

The other members of his squad are there. Eren wonders if they feel the same as he does.

When he got to the end, he stood in front of the unmoving figure of what once was humanity’s strongest, whose hands were folded over his chest and his eyes were closed and a dozen white and black and red roses were clutched plastically between his cold fingers.

“I’m sorry.” Eren said, because he is- Levi is gone because of him, because of his foolishness, because he couldn’t save him.

He cried silently, and everyone else just stood there and watched.

“I’m sorry!” he said again, louder this time. He screams. He rages.

He brought his hands up shakily, putting the right one over his heart and the left on his back.

“Long live Corporal Rivaille, of the Special Operation’s Squad and Humanity’s Strongest!” he _screamed_ , knuckles whitening with the sheer force his fists were clenched around nothing.

The others saluted in a similar way, tears in their eyes.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t speak when Eren wen forced to close the casket lid and they didn’t when lifting the weight of Levi along with the wood strained their shoulders.

They didn’t speak when the snow started to fall, coating everything in a thin white coat and making the colours blend and snap and dull, like a dream.

They all wished this was a dream.

They didn’t speak when the casket was left on the middle of a field, the snow covering everything and making it unreal.

They didn’t speak when Eren lit up the torches and poured gas on the wood surrounding his lover’s new home.

They cried when Eren made the flames blaze, and saluted again as they ate up everything on their path, destroying the only good thing left in Eren’s heart.

He doesn’t know why they were crying at all.  He wondered, quietly and suddenly, if they were crying for him. If they were crying for the loss of one, or perhaps two friends and fellow comrades.  He wondered if their tears and the product of the unbearable pity that formed in their gut and expanded all the way to the ends of their fingers, burning them alive were because Eren has literally nothing left and they feel for him.

He wondered if they cried because Rivaille was actually _that_ important to them as a person and not as someone vital for the success of humanity.

Then he laughed, because that’s a load of shit.

People looked at him strangely, probably thinking _poor thing. He’s lost is mind._

He laughed until his knees gave in and he was crying a different kind of tears.  He laughed at the cold that bit at his hands when he buried them in the snow, and when it melted due to his high-body temperatures.

He laughed until he couldn’t laugh anymore, leaving him gasping for air and smiling widely for all the wrong reasons.

 _I am allowed to be broken,_ he reasoned when everyone starts to leave and Erwin comes, _come on, you’ll get sick. Levi would‘ve liked me to take care of you for him._

But they both know that’s bullshit, too, and Eren laughed some more.

His clothes were soggy and his stomach hurt, but he didn’t care. Not anymore.

He looked at the ring on his right hand, and thought about the irony of the situation.

He doesn’t speak, or eat, or shower or even change out of the clothes he’s wearing for weeks after that. Instead he buried his tear-stained face in Levi’s cravat that lies around his own neck, and greets unconsciousness like an old friend.

He is too tired to dream. He’s glad he doesn’t.

Because he’s broken, and when Hanji knocks on his door a few days after, he reasons that this must be payback from when he killed all of those people-turned-titans.

He’s glad Mikasa’s not here anymore and that Armin is too busy, because he would be ashamed if they ever saw him like this.

 _If_ they ever saw him again.

But the world keeps spinning, and everything still has colour, and the snow still falls with soft crunches and it still rains with a _pitter pat, pitter pat._

Eren hates it. He hates all of it. The colours, and the sunshine, and the sea, once he sees it. He cries because it reminds him of Levi with its calm complexion and ruthless attitude, with its loyalty to the shore because even if it leaves it will always come back with a new wave of salty water, and shells, and sand and smells that Eren dislikes with all his might. And Eren thinks how ironic and senseless his life as become when he starts comparing his late lover to the ocean.  

The sand sticks to his clothes and skin when he leaves, and he subtly thinks that Levi would’ve thrown a fit if he had lived long enough to this moment because the sand sticks to the soles of his shoes and the salt water makes everything sticky once dried.  He smiles into the cravat around his neck and a few tears slide out of his eyes.

Maybe he would’ve loved the sea if Levi was here with him. He would’ve compared the endless stretch of crystalline and ice cold water to his eyes, and how they seemed to drown Eren every time he looked into them because they are just so mysterious.

Maybe Levi would’ve smiled and said that Eren was a shitty brat and that if anyone’s eyes were like the sea, it was Eren’s. Maybe he would’ve slapped Eren upside down the head and then kissed him lovingly and playfully, just like he always used to when they were alone.

But he isn’t here, and once it hits Eren again, he frowns and sobs with a hole in his chest.   

**Author's Note:**

> sorry again~


End file.
